Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

The creature roundup: dragons, aliens, ghosts and more

“Hey, have you guys seen anything strange around here?” Ewan McGregor stars with Eleanor Tomlinson and Nicholas Hoult in “Jack the Giant Slayer.”

Too scary for kids, too juvenile for adults, JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (PG-13, 2 stars) falls into the no-man’s land of entertainment that winds up disappointing all parties.

On the surface, this adaptation seems like a can’t-miss prospect given our familiarity with the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale, but this big-budget, CGI affair winds up feeling more soulless than fanciful, and audiences stayed away, with some estimates saying that the producers wound up losing more than $100 on the film.

Director Bryan Singer has the chops to handle this kind of project, but he struggles with the tone of the film throughout, alternating between whimsy and terror to disjointing effect. With this kind of material, you’ve got to pick one path and stay on it, but “Jack” is all over the place.

The film follows the titular Jack (Nicholas Hoult), a poor farm boy who lives with his uncle in near squalor. On a trip into town to sell the family horse, he winds up protecting a young woman from drunks and taking a punch to the face for his troubles. This turns out to be the fetching Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), who longs for a life of adventure outside the castle.

Jack trades his horse to a monk for some beans, ones that supposedly have the power to shake the world to its foundation, but that explanation doesn’t sit well with his uncle. Later that evening, a mysterious woman seeking shelter from a storm comes by Jack’s farm, and before you know, Jack and Isabelle are having their meet-cute moment. But when the beans accidentally get wet, it unleashes a giant stalk to the sky and the giants above snatch the princess.

From this point on, you can probably figure out what happens next. The saving graces of the film are the performances from Ewan McGregor as the king’s most trusted knight and Stanley Tucci as the double-crossing advisor who finds a way to rule the giants. Both deliver the right amount of dashing and menace for their characters, livening up the bland proceedings.

“Jack” is never bad, and the booming sounds from the giants will give your speaker systems a workout, but this is one fairy tale that won’t be passed down from generation to generation.

***

Writer-director Scott Stewart must have compromising pictures of people in power, because I can’t otherwise understand how he gets to keep making movies.

“Legion” was a ridiculous movie about angels and “Priest” was a bad one about vampires, and yet, Stewart goes to the supernatural well once again with DARK SKIES (PG-13, 1 1/2 stars), an aimless alien invasion thriller that relies on cheap scares and wonky logic to drive its story. Essentially, the film is a “creepy kid” movie, only in this case, aliens are filling the role.

The Barrett family is in bad shape, with father Daniel (Josh Hamilton) out of work, mom Lacy (Keri Russell) struggling in her realtor job and two kids both dealing with typical kid issues. Those stresses, however, begin to manifest themselves in strange ways – food towers, missing pictures, ringing alarms, etc.

So what’s happening? Why is the Barrett family having hallucinations? Why are birds throwing themselves at the family home? And why are strange marks showing up on the children?

According to J.K. Simmons, who shows up in a creepy cameo, the Barretts are being targeted by aliens, who apparently like to come down and f around with people every couple of years, just for kicks. Since this particular family has been rife with strife, it’s even easier for them to wreak havoc, which eventually ends with the abduction of someone.

My issue with this kind of material is that it follows a well-worn path that anyone who is familiar with horror/sci-fi conventions will become bored with the “scary” events that occur. By the time the predictable finale rolls around, there’s little surprise about what’s on screen.

***

Guillermo del Toro has the magic touch when it comes to the horror genre. Although he hasn’t directed a film in quite some time, he’s lent his imprimatur to several projects, including MAMA (PG-13, 2 1/2 stars), which started as a short film before being extended to feature length.

It was one of the biggest hits of the winter, racking up nearly $150 million in worldwide box office on a modest $15 million budget, and that ensures we will continue to get movies like this again and again, for whatever that’s worth.

Two young girls are abandoned in a cabin by their father, who has had an emotional breakdown brought on by the 2008 financial crisis. Five years later, the cabin is found by a rescue party and the feral, yet alive, girls have somehow survived.

They are turned over to their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) to begin the long process of returning to society. The girls keep making reference to “Mama,” their alleged protector during their time in the cabin, but no one seems to believe them.

Annabel is an interesting character in that she’s not really that interested in being a surrogate aunt to these two wayward kids, but gradually becomes invested in keeping them safe. Chastain, of course, is a fantastic actress and while this kind of material might be beneath her (I doubt we’ll ever see her in a genre pic like this again), she delivers a soulful performance that elevates the film.

The horror elements are your standard hodgepodge of jump scares, skittering bodies, ghostly specters and creepy flashbacks, but director Andy Muschietti does do a good job of deploying them. I don’t think the movie is particularly good, but it is effective at producing quality scares. If you’re looking for a movie to watch with your jumpy significant other, this will do the trick nicely.

***

Horror fans are a forgiving lot. We tend to overlook many of the flaws that fans of other genres get up in arms about, such as plot and character development, if our scares come fast and furious.

Remaking, rebooting or however you want to call the continuous plundering of horror’s back catalog, should be easy. If you take the iconic boogeymen of the day and put a halfway decent spin on the proceedings, most people will go home happy. For example, I enjoyed the “Friday the 13th” reboot, even though it takes great liberties with the source material.

The folks behind TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (R, 1/2 star) have seemingly forgotten what makes this property, and its legendary serial madman, Leatherface, so scary, instead making an inane film that attempts to humanize someone who has been previously filmed for the last 40 years as something less than that.

Eschewing the numerous sequels and prior reboots of the franchise, this film posits itself as the direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s seminal 1974 film, picking up right after the townspeople burn down the infamous farmhouse of the Sawyer family, whose black sheep son Jed, aka Leatherface, went on a murder spree.

One of the arsonists discovers a baby and takes it as his own, which leads to the first huge problem this movie has. If that was 1974 and we are allegedly in the present day (iPhones are in use), wouldn’t this baby be older than actress Alexandra Daddario (age 27), whom the film presents as the long-lost Sawyer relative?

That huge loophole aside, Heather and her friends decide to drive down to Texas to check out her inheritance after the death of her grandmother, where she conveniently ignores the advice of her lawyer to read a letter her grandmother instructed her to open upon her arrival. What does she do instead? Go shopping.

Look, I don’t expect the characters in horror flicks to be brain surgeons, but c’mon. The film keeps this level of stupidity throughout, and by the time Heather teams up with Leatherface thanks to their blood relation, I was ready to throw my shoe at the TV.

Normally, I’d say this was for die-hards only, but I think the only people who might be entertained by this are those who have never seen a “Chainsaw” movie before. That way, they don’t know how stupid this new twist on an old favorite is.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.